


The Parting Glass

by topshelf



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Implied Double Agent Moira, Retribution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 07:57:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14351241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topshelf/pseuds/topshelf
Summary: Moira leaves for Venice tomorrow.





	The Parting Glass

Grey smoke curls gently into the damp afternoon, white flakes of ash collecting on Moira’s black shirt like dandruff. She stares out over the airfield, absently regarding the mammoth dropships parked in their hangar across the runway. By this time tomorrow, she’ll be suited up and joining Reyes, the ninja, and the cowboy on an ill-planned “road trip” to conduct political suicide. She takes a long drag on her cigarette, briefly indulging herself in a fantasy of igniting a nearby pipeline of jet fuel with the embers smoldering between her lips and taking this whole shitshow down with her. 

Lost in thought calculating the amount of fuel she could combust with half a clove cigarette, Moira does not hear the soft tap of Angela’s shoes behind her and has to fight the visible startle at hearing her name. Angela stands in the doorway of the propped fire exit and pulls her sweater tight across her body. 

“I really wish you wouldn’t smoke, Moira,” she muses, lips curled into a gentle, yet weary smile. Angela’s words were always well-chosen and bathed in good intentions -- maybe that’s what bothered Moira so much. Maybe that’s what made this so hard. 

Moira tenses her mouth into what she hopes resembles a smile, but can tell from Angela’s nonplussed reaction that it probably looks more like she has a mouthful of lemons. She turns back out to the airfield and takes another drag of the cigarette, hoping to reset her expression into something a little less … incriminating. 

The two stand in silence for a while, listening to the music of the rain pattering on the cracked asphalt, wind singing softly through the trees that sway gently at the perimeter of the concealed facility. 

“Are you nervous?” Angela asks softly, sparking a cascade of questions that bubble and pop in Moira’s mind. Angela’s genuine nature made it difficult for Moira to get a read on her; was she searching for something? Confirming a rumor? Moira huffs out a breath full of dense smoke that seems to hang in the air before dissipating.

“We have contingencies for multiple outcomes, and I believe my equipment to be in working order.” True on all accounts. Not at all what Angela is asking.

A beat goes by. Moira feels a twinge of anxious energy snake into her chest and she exhales a long stream of smoke in a symbolic gesture of release. It tightens around her heart in defiance. Moira feels a nervous tick in her right hand begin to rear its betraying head and she switches the cigarette to her non-dominant hand in order to stave off her obvious tell. She knows Angela sees it. Angela always sees it. 

Moira turns to regard the doctor, who is leaning against the door frame with her cardigan wrapped tightly around her by arms crossed firmly across her chest. She’s in teal scrubs and scuffed white sneakers, golden hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She doesn’t need to rotate into clinic shifts, she’s plenty busy as it is, but Moira never puts it past Angela to overextend herself for others. In this way, they could not be more dissimilar. 

In this way, Moira knows this is always the way it ends. 

“You’ll catch a cold out here in this rain.” An actual smile worms its way onto Moira’s lips. Even now, in light of everything, Angela cares. _Primum non nocere_ , or whatever. 

“I like it.” A beat. It doesn't matter anymore. Moira lets out a half laugh. “It reminds me of home.” 

Angela acknowledges the change in mood and steps forward to stand beside Moira. She closes her eyes and tilts her face to the sky, allowing the rain to splash gently on her rosy cheeks. Moira watches her silently, fighting a surge of anxious nausea that begins to churn in her stomach. 

“Will you ever go home?” Angela does not open her eyes, and for this Moira is thankful. She squeezes her own eyes shut and mitigates a shaky breath with a pull on the cigarette, now a sputtering stump with not much left to give. _No. And I don’t know if anywhere else will have me._

“Maybe someday.” 

Angela finally opens her eyes and turns to Moira, cheeks wet with droplets of rainwater. Mostly. Moira can tell there is so much Angela wants to say, to accuse and argue and understand. It weighs heavily on her slight frame, dragging down her normally perfect shoulders. Moira wishes she could scoop Angela up and lighten the load, but she knows that this is only the beginning. She wonders if Angela will ever stand straight again. 

The rain has picked up and the wind begins to drive sheets of it across the airfield. Drops splash from the roof above and create a fine mist around the two agents, water clinging to every hair on Moira’s exposed arms. Moira looks down and sees her cigarette long extinguished, and she drops it the ground, crushing it beneath her boot. Hands now unoccupied and shaking, Moira reaches out and cups Angela’s jaw, brushing away the droplets that cling to the contours of the young doctor’s face. 

“Angela, I--” _I what? I’ve been stealing your tech for years? I threatened this entire organization for my own gain? I’m sorry for what’s about to happen?_

_I love you?_

Instead of finishing whatever ill-fated sentence she’d started, Moira leans in and captures Angela’s lips in a cold, wet kiss. Angela’s hands immediately arrive at Moira’s sides, her slender fingers gathering fistfuls of Moira’s shirt as she kisses back with equal force. They kiss hard and deep, each woman desperately attempting to convey every word they cannot bring themselves to say aloud.

 _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,_ Moira cries.

 _I know. I’ll never forgive you,_ Angela retorts. 

They break and Angela wipes her face with her sleeve, which does little more than move water from one side to the other. Moira is uncomfortably conscious of her breathing, forcing it into a consistent rhythm despite the sputtering gasps that flutter painfully in her chest.

Angela turns back to the doorway, stepping just inside the threshold before turning back to Moira one last time. “Be safe,” she says. She means it.

Moira manages a weak smile and a curt nod and watches Angela disappear down the hallway. The rest of her cigarettes are too wet to light. Moira stares out at the rain driving across the airfield and wonders what the weather is like in Dublin today.


End file.
